"Did I?" she rejoined. "Well, if that's the case, it leaves you without
a leg to stand on. I challenge you to find any instance where a Greek
made any difficulties about accepting a piano from a friend. But
seriously--while we are talking about it--you introduced the subject:
I didn't--I might as well explain to you that I had no such intention,
when I picked the instrument out. It was later, when I was talking to
Thurston's people about the price, that the whim seized me. Now it is
the one fixed rule of my life to obey my whims. Whatever occurs to me as
a possibly pleasant thing to do, straight like a hash, I go and do it.
It is the only way that a person with means, with plenty of money, can
preserve any freshness of character. If they stop to think what it would
be prudent to do, they get crusted over immediately. That is the curse
of rich people--they teach themselves to distrust and restrain every
impulse toward unusual actions. They get to feel that it is more
necessary for them to be cautious and conventional than it is for
others. I would rather work at a wash-tub than occupy that attitude
toward my bank account. I fight against any sign of it that I detect
rising in my mind. The instant a wish occurs to me, I rush to gratify
it. That is my theory of life. That accounts for the piano; and I don't
see that you've anything to say about it at all."

It seemed very convincing, this theory of life. Somehow, the thought
of Miss Madden's riches had never before assumed prominence in Theron's
mind. Of course her father was very wealthy, but it had not occurred
to him that the daughter's emancipation might run to the length of a
personal fortune. He knew so little of rich people and their ways!

He lifted his head, and looked up at Celia with an awakened humility and
awe in his glance. The glamour of a separate banking-account shone upon